The present disclosure relates to welding apparatuses for use in, for example, automobile production lines.
Conventionally, a body of an automobile is produced by positioning a plurality of press-molded workpieces in a jig, and welding the workpieces in various manners to assemble them together.
For example, a welding apparatus, for automobile bodies, disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H07-185827 (paragraphs [0008]-[0016] and FIG. 1) includes a rotating table rotatable around a vertically extending rotation axis, two jigs are placed on the upper surface of the rotating table around its outer circumference at 180° intervals in its circumferential direction. The jigs are placed such that, in a non-operating state of the rotating table, one of the jigs is placed in a region where workpieces are welded (hereinafter referred to as “workpiece welded region”) and the other of the jigs is placed in a region where workpieces are set (hereinafter referred to as “workpiece set region”), and in the workpiece welded region, one welding robot whose arm end has a welding gun is placed.
When the workpieces positioned in the one jig are welded by the welding robot, other workpieces that will be succeedingly assembled are set and positioned in the other jig in advance, and after a welding operation in the one jig is finished, the rotating table is rotated by 180° to allow the one jig to move into the workpiece set region and the other jig to move into the workpiece welded region. Then, the workpieces in the other jig are welded by the welding robot while the assembly of the workpieces is taken out of the one jig that has moved into the workpiece set region and other workpieces that will be succeedingly assembled are set and positioned in the one jig, thereby improving productivity.